Technical.ly Editorial Director

ABOUT THE POSITION

Technically Media, a fully remote digital media company best known for publishing Technical.ly, a news organization with a community of technologists and entrepreneurs, is seeking an experienced, creative and committed Editorial Director to grow our community and strengthen our newsroom. Overall we are a team of 20, and we publish in six U.S. markets with an increasing national profile via the Technical.ly website, daily newsletters, social media and our public Slack with 4,500 members.

This is a crucial role overseeing our efforts to grow and engage our community of technologists and entrepreneurs — the bedrock of our work. This community looks to us to help inform, educate and connect them with career opportunities. Above all else you must prioritize listening to our technology and innovation-minded readers. You own our reader journey (from social media follow to casual reader to newsletter subscriber to professional using our services to advance their career), reader personas and the team that drives this.

This role reports directly to the CEO and oversees our Editorial team, including our Technical.ly Managing Editor, market Editor and Engagement Manager. You will be part of a four-person leadership team. In addition to the CEO and yourself, the team includes our Director of Client Services, who oversees our Buyer Journey, and our Vice President of Operations (who oversees our systems and our Product team, which drives connections between Readers and Buyers).

We need someone passionate about building online communities, inquisitive and value-obsessed. You should be creative and excited about how a newsroom drives value — primarily for our readers, including how they can be responsibly and effectively introduced to our clients too. We have a newsroom featuring three experienced professionals (who will report to you) and five beat reporters who cover our local communities (and who report to the editors). You'll help guide their work for maximum effect, including both informing editorial strategy and deploying specific series. We want to serve the needs of our community to grow and introduce those interested to our clients.

If you don’t meet 100% of this role’s qualifications but you’re passionate about our work, you should still seriously consider applying. That’s especially true if you are a woman, person of color or from another underrepresented group. Research shows people who have been underrepresented in leadership roles often discount their own experience. We won’t.

The Editorial Director will relentlessly challenge, tweak and improve the methods we use to drive value for readers and therefore grow our online community. You will view our independent newsroom, robust newsletter portfolio, social media platforms and other online communities (including a public Slack and Meetup) as tools for informing and connecting our readers with opportunities. You work to maximize the number of technologists and entrepreneurs (both aspiring and experienced) who benefit from our work and consider themselves a part of our communities. Newsletter subscribers are a crucial metric you track; with overall audience and other analytics informing your work. SEO plays an important role.

RESPONSIBILITIES: 

• Prioritize above all else our pursuit of an active, engaged and growing community of professionals who use and understand our work and resources
• Relentlessly improve  our editorial product, with special focus on our newsletter offerings. You own our Reader Journey. How do people find us and fall in love?
• Serve in an organizational leadership capacity, reporting directly to the CEO and tracking quarterly OKRs. You will have three editors as direct reports, support their newsroom oversight and be responsible for future audience development investment.
• Challenge our assumptions on our Reader Personas and how we drive value for them
• Consider creative engagement strategies for growing the level of interactivity among members of our community, including our public Slack community
• Track our weekly and monthly and quarterly analytics to spot gaps and opportunities for improvement. This includes an eye toward SEO optimization.
• Ensure our advancing best practices on our audience referral strategies, including search, link building, newsletter and social media
• Oversee and support our newsroom, including the deployment of quarterly RealLIST, monthly editorial calendar and annual tentpole projects. This includes the development of new projects and series that drive results.
• Collaborate with our Director of Client Services and support our editors in the deployment of special projects and underwritten journalism
• Work with our Product team in strategies for growing and improving our reader database, specifically moving community members down our Reader Journey to newsletter subscription and opting-in to our supporting their career search
• Oversee our Technical.ly Managing Editor, Editor and Engagement Manager
• Support the newsroom’s production of special projects (such as our THRIVING series; a report produced with support from the Delaware Black Chamber of Commerce and a virtual event series produced with Spotify for software engineers of color)
• Support our newsroom in maintaining media partnerships to drive audience
• Test, listen, improve; Test, listen, improve; Test, listen, improve the ways we drive value

SKILLS:

• Able to inspire, motivate, challenge and bring the most out of a newsroom to fulfill its goals of growing and engaging a community of professionals
• Deeply entrenched and passionate about forming online communities
• Curious about the work technologists and entrepreneurs do
• Passionate about editorial, with special passion for community journalism
• Experience with and passion for newsletter products
• Strength in cultural competency for engaging our diverse communities and staff
• Curious about the future of editorial, journalism and online communities
• Adept at listening to reader feedback
• Experience with concepts like reader journey; reader personas; SEO and social analytics
• Savvy online storyteller, including social media engagement
• Creative, resourceful and effective developer of editorial products that solve problems
• Exceptional interpersonal skills, with a strength in managing relationships.
• Experience with CRM; bonus points for Hubspot specifically
• Experience with Wordpress as a CMS, Google Suite and Instapage

Other information

• Position is salaried, based on experience.
• Position includes a 401k plan, which includes a 4% match
• Position includes competitive health insurance coverage (we offer a defined contribution that amounts on average to 70 percent of an individual plan)
• Position includes Bring-Your-Own-Device reimbursement
• Our company is remote, though we primarily operate on U.S East Coast time zone, and when possible we intend to host quarterly leadership meetings in person in Philadelphia, two of which may be aligned with our annual team retreat (summer) and annual all-team day (December).
•  Though results matter most and Technically Media prides itself on flexibility, as a guide, this role might expect to work roughly 40-45 hours a week.
• New employees start by benefiting from 30 paid-days off a year. That includes the following: we celebrate 11 paid holidays per year; 15 PTO days accrued per year with additional PTO offered progressively.
• Technically Media additionally closes its offices for the final week of the year to relax and unwind before each new year. This serves as additional paid holiday time.
• Technically Media offers 8-weeks of paid parental leave, with options to extend to reach 12-weeks.

ABOUT TECHNICALLY MEDIA:

Mission: Technical.ly is a news organization that connects and challenges a community of technologists and entrepreneurs who are invested in where they live.

Vision: We believe innovation can come from anyone anywhere — to ensure all communities thrive.

Values: Our team is Welcoming, Challenging and Connective.